================== NOTICE: THIS ABSTRACT WAS EXTRACTED FROM APPLICATION AND HAS NOT BEEN PROOFED BY AN SRA.WHEN THERE ARE PROBLEMS WITH THE APPLICATION SCANNING PROCESS, THE EXTRACTED TEXT MAY BE INCORRECT OR INCOMPLETE. ================== Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Conference Harnessing Immunity to Prevent and Treat Disease Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory November 11-14, 2009 This is a longstanding CSH conference with a strong focus on vaccine research and development. This year we have designed the meeting to bring together leaders in the field studying the basic biology of immune responses to infectious disease, cancer and autoimmunity with leaders focused on translating this information to develop preventative and therapeutic vaccines for these diseases. There have been many advances recently in several basic areas of immunology relevant to vaccines including: 1) a much more extensive understanding of how pathogens trigger innate immune responses and how those responses shape adaptive immunity, 2) the role of adjuvants in triggering innate immune responses and 3) the identification of new subsets of T cells, such as Th17, that play key roles in immunity, 4) the use of technologies such as microarray analysis and multi-parameter flow cytometry to better understand the complicated and heterogeneous nature of the immune response. The basic science contributions will cover these areas and examples will be given how innovation in these areas can be incorporated into vaccine design. In addition there are a number of novel new vaccines under consideration that are designed to modulate immune responses to respond to poorly immunogenic tumors, to interfere with autoimmunity, and to intervene in diseases such as Alzheimer's disease. We will have presentations by experts in these non-conventional vaccine approaches as well. Our hope and expectation is that the interaction and exchange of information between the basic scientists and those involved in application will lead to the design of more clinically relevant experiments and will inform vaccine developers of critical new scientific breakthroughs they should consider in their vaccine approaches. Five keynote speakers have accepted our invitations to give a broad perspective on issues of vaccines and their future potential. We have organized sessions on: 1) perspectives on immunotherapy for cancer, 2) innate immunity and adjuvants, 3) vaccines and adjuvants for non-infectious diseases, 4) immunity to infectious disease and on 5) vaccines for challenging diseases and new threats. We have invited several leaders in the field to present in each session and in addition we will choose two short presentations selected from the abstracts to encourage participation of more junior scientists and to give an opportunity for presentation of late- breaking results. The meeting format also ensures time for interactions between scientists, particularly during meals and in poster sessions. The meeting will foster interaction, and provide a forum for the development of new ideas and approaches. Vaccines are designed to induce the immune system to become primed, so that when an infectious agent is encountered again, the memory T cells circulating antibody produced by primed B cells can prevent infection or quickly clear any invading organisms. Yet, the scientists studying the mechanisms of immunity are found mostly in academia and they do not often interact with those who design and test vaccines who work mostly in the pharmaceutical industry. We hope to bring these two groups together to exchange information, forge collaborations and discuss how to enable and make better vaccines.